India a portrait of a country

India is quite possibly my favourite country in the world that I have visted so far. I love it for its astonishing cultural diversity and most importantly its people. Its through a countries people that you can really get under the skin and truly discover it. I felt compelled to create this collection of photographs not only to celebrate the alluring people of India but to also celebrate a new beginning in my photography and my newfound love of the 50mm lens.

All great photographers have a style. A style that you can recognise to be theirs and through my journey across Asia I have been discovering and developing mine. I now feel that I have found my niche. At the start of my trip I was more of a sneaky stealth like photographer and tended to put a nice comfortable distance between me and my subject, photograph them and scarper once they had realised what I was up to. However as the months and countries went by my confidence increased and my ethics changed.

By using my 50mm I had to interact with people and communicate with them. As a result my photographs had a deeper connection now that my subjects understood what I was doing and were now happy to oblige, but most importantly they were relaxed and natural. Where possible I would always get the permission of the subject to photograph them. The majority of the time they would say yes unless they were women who would generally decline to be photographed which unfortunately is so often the case in India.

The 50mm lens really does bring you closer to the subject in every way. With my new found confidence the camera became a great excuse to stop, meet and converse with complete strangers. Learn a little something about their lives for a moment and hopefully get a nice portrait at the end of it.